Medford And The Rogue Valley -- Passion For Pears Leads To Southern Oregon

When I was a child in rural Pennsylvania, The Box arrived during the holiday season.

As my siblings and I clustered around, my mother carefully cut the ties and lifted off the cardboard lid. A fragrant aroma spilled from the open box like Pandora's escaping sprites. Inside were the biggest, most perfect-looking pears I'd ever seen. Yellow-green, often tinged with red, they seemed the size of softballs. I half-suspected they were agricultural mutants.

They came from Oregon, a big squarish state far, far away.

On Christmas Eve we were finally allowed to eat the pears. My mother cut up several for our family of seven, which we devoured with slices of longhorn cheddar cheese, homemade Christmas cookies and hot cocoa. The pear slices melted in our mouths, their juicy flesh dissolving sweetly, their silky texture gliding down our throats. They were so luscious, we had to keep a napkin handy to catch stray drops of juice from running down our chins.

Pear ambassador

After moving to Washington during the 1980s, I saw no signs of such giant juicy pears. Had they been a figment of my youthful imagination? Perhaps it was time for a road trip.

I cruised down Interstate 5 to Medford, Ore., and headed for the factory outlet store for Harry and David, the largest pear grower and packer in the region and one of the nation's premier mail-order food businesses. That's where I met Ray, Unofficial Ambassador of Pears.

While perusing the produce aisles, I heard an enthusiastic monologue on the virtues of pears. The voice belonged to a mustachioed fellow who was enthusiastically gesticulating, pear in hand, to an attentive young couple. This was the guy to talk to, I decided.

When the couple left, I approached the produce stocker: "Excuse me, but what's the deal with those big, fancy, juicy, pears I used to get through mail-order? What kind are they?"

You'd have thought Ray had never been asked that question before, he was so delighted to give me his attention. He loves pears. He loves people. He reintroduced me to the pears of my childhood.

King of pears

What our family used to call "Harry and David" pears are Comice pears (say coh-MEES), officially Doyenne du Comice ("king of pears").

Discovered in the south of France sometime around 1840 and served to royalty, they were brought to America about a decade later. Known as the best-flavored pear, almost all Comice pears produced commercially for the U.S. market are grown in Oregon. The long warm summers, crisp nights, wet cool winters and ample water of the Rogue River Valley of southern Oregon, and to a lesser extent, the Hood River Valley, are perfect for growing the fruit.

The industry began in the Rogue Valley around Medford with the arrival of the railroad in the 1880s. By the turn of the century, 200 orchardists grew pears, apples, peaches and other fruits. The number doubled by 1930.

Colorful fruit labels placed on the wooden crates became a way for growers to advertise their crops. Labels were originally created from etchings on limestone, but were replaced by metal plates in the 1930s. With the conversion in the 1950s to less-expensive cardboard boxes, the label was replaced by a simple two-color stamp. Collectors now prize the classic labels.

Harry and David Rosenberg took over their family's Bear Creek Orchards in 1914. During the '20s, most of the orchard's pears were exported to hotels and resorts in Europe. But during the Depression of the early 1930's, the Rosenbergs were faced with bankruptcy. They came up with a bold plan to sell their pears by mail order, an avant-garde idea at the time, since mail-order business at the time was largely limited to Sears and Roebuck.

Taking sample boxes of their prize Comices, Harry set out for New York City, David for San Francisco. They hand-delivered boxes to every important person they could.

Harry and David were probably a lot like Ray, knowing that the way to sell their pears was to introduce them on an intimate level, pear to person. Orders began pouring in, and the company became the region's leading shipper.

Other orchards in the area grow Comice pears, often marketing them through Harry and David, while other growers prefer to raise pears that take less coddling.

"Comice pears are very, very sensitive to touch," said Sue Naumes, co-owner with her brother Mike of Naumes Inc. in Medford. "You pick up a Comice and afterwards, it'll have five fingerprints on it."

The skin is so delicate, even while on the tree, Naumes said, that "if you have a pear growing next to another pear, or have a leaf or a twig touching it, you'll get a brown scar on that pear."

The quality of the underlying fruit is unaffected by bruising, although the care involved makes it difficult to attractively present the pears at supermarkets.

Customers unfamiliar with the taste of Comice pears might balk at a bruised pile of expensive fruit.

With a spoon

I asked Ray about other options than the pristine Comices sold in the gift boxes. Ray walked outside where bins and crates of different grades of pears lined the front walk.

Here were great values on smaller, bruised Comices that still tasted great - and for only about 29 cents a pound.

Too juicy for baking, Comices are known as dessert pears, and you had better have a napkin handy. Harry and David market their finest Comice pears as Royal Riviera pears, whose motto is "So big and juicy, you eat them with a spoon.

Said Naumes: "Nobody grows Comices with the degree of sweetness like those in the Rogue River Valley."

The huge pears astounded a group of Russian tourists that visited the factory store. "The pears they were used to seeing in their country were about a quarter of the size of our No. 1 grade," said Ray. "When I took out my knife and started cutting slices, all the cameras came out . . ."

Pear facts

I picked out my own half-crate of Comice pears from the outside stacks, then followed Ray back to the produce department. Retired from his former career, he was now enjoying his position at Harry and David. Then I asked Ray what I really needed to know. "Ray," I asked him solemnly. "How do you know when a pear is ripe?

"Ah" Ray's eyes glittered knowingly. He ran over to a pile of pears, tested a few and found one that was satisfactory.

"Press at the top of the pear near the stem. When it gives a little, it's ripe," he said as he demonstrated.

Pears are picked when unripe to prevent bruising. According to Paul Todak, the Harry and David assistant store manager, the local pears are picked in September and October and kept in cold storage under high humidity to retard the ripening process, which makes them available through January.

Ray warned me not to move the pears back and forth between a warm and cool place. "Then they get mushy, turn black inside."

He advised me to keep the pears refrigerated or in a cool garage, then bring a few inside to ripen. Another ripening method is to place unripe pears in a paper bag and let them stand at room temperature.

Perform the thumb test; if ripe, refrigerate if you're not going to eat the pear that day.

According to the Pear Bureau Northwest, a medium-size pear contains only 100 calories, has no cholesterol or sodium, and provides a good source of fiber, Vitamins A and C, potassium, magnesium, calcium and iron.

Leaving Ray in the produce aisle, I left to make my purchases. He'd whipped out a small paring knife and was deftly carving slices from a pear and passing them out to shoppers.

More information

Harry and David, Medford, Ore. Phone 800-547-3033. Or, via the Internet: http://www.harryanddavid.com. For information about factory tours: 800-345-5655.

Also check out Web site of the Pear Bureau Northwest: http://www2.usapears.com.